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Orange County's nonprofit newsroomMon, 21 Jan 2019 09:08:10 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.9Santa Ana Grapples With $400,000 Payout, Police Records Destruction, During Leadership Vacuumhttps://voiceofoc.org/2019/01/santa-ana-grapples-with-400000-payout-police-records-destruction-during-leadership-vacuum/
https://voiceofoc.org/2019/01/santa-ana-grapples-with-400000-payout-police-records-destruction-during-leadership-vacuum/#respondThu, 17 Jan 2019 14:59:00 +0000https://voiceofoc.org/?p=787882Santa Ana City Council members grappled Tuesday with a range of issues including a $400,000 payment to the ousted city manager and creating closed-door committees where council members can make policy in secret, while City Hall’s day-to-day leadership remained in limbo.

The original Council agenda also included authorizing the destruction of eight boxes of police records regarding investigations of officers for misconduct, use of force, shootings and in-custody deaths. But the item later quietly disappeared from the agenda, and the agenda documents were deleted from the city’s website.

Steven Mendoza, the acting city manager, told Voice of OC after the meeting he removed it because he didn’t have a grasp on the item before he briefed council members.

City Manager Raul Godinez and the city’s second-in-command, Robert Cortez, departed over the past two months following election results that shifted the council’s power, with City Council members on Tuesday narrowly authorizing a $400,000 taxpayer payout to Godinez. City Clerk Maria Huizar handed in her resignation Jan. 8.

During their closed session Tuesday, City Council members were scheduled to discuss temporary replacements for the city manager and clerk, though they ended up making no appointments.

Mayor Miguel Pulido has wanted Laguna Niguel City Manager Kristine Ridge as Santa Ana’s chief executive, while Councilman Jose Solorio has favored Public Works Director Fuad Sweiss for the job, according to people close to the Council.

Mendoza, who is also director of the city’s Community Development Agency, continued to double as acting city manager and Huizar returned to the dais for a final time before her resignation takes effect Monday, Jan. 21, and she leaves to become the city clerk of Lake Forest.

Godinez’ and Huizar’s departures follow those of Cortez – the former deputy city manager – and one of the city manager’s top aides, Jorge Garcia, since the election.

$400,000 Ouster Payout Sparks Pushback

At its meeting Tuesday, the Council finalized an agreement for Godinez’ departure as city manager in a 4-to-1 vote, with Mayor Pulido and council members Juan Villegas, Jose Solorio and David Penaloza approving a nearly $400,000 payout for Godinez to leave.

Councilwoman Ceci Iglesias voted against it and council members Roman Reyna and Vicente Sarmiento were absent from the vote, because they left the meeting just before the item was discussed and did not return.

Reyna and Sarmiento didn’t say why they were leaving. Pulidosaid they left due to family member emergencies, without explaining further.

Sarmiento said over the phone a member of his family was sick, and when asked how he would have voted on Godinez’ separation agreement, he called the question “speculative, since the item wasn’t before me.”

“Raul did a commendable job while he was here, but he also understood he came in on a thin majority,” Sarmiento said. “He did good work.”

Godinez’ fate came into play publicly on Jan. 4, when a slim majority of the council talked about his departure in a special closed session meeting but took no publicly-reported action.

Over the last six years, the city has cycled through at least seven people in the acting or permanent city manager role, as the council’s power dynamics shift away from, and back towards, Pulido and the police union.

Iglesias, a Republican and self-described fiscal conservative, opposed the cost of Godinez’ severance and expressed frustration at Santa Ana’s high turnover of city managers over the last several years.

“I feel [the severance] is inappropriate, being that we’re in a financial burden. We’re spending like there’s no tomorrow,” she said of the fact the city is spending over $1 million for payoffs of ousted executives during the last two years.

The forced resignation of then-City Manager David Cavazos in late 2016 and early 2017 cost taxpayers at least $343,000, and the subsequent firing of Police Chief Carlos Rojas led to a lawsuit the Council agreed to settle last month for $350,000 in taxpayer money.

Iglesias had Mendoza, the acting city manager, restate into his microphone the exact cost to the city for Godinez’ severance and Medicare taxes: $394,586.21.

“For him to, just, walk away. OK,” Iglesias said.

Godinez’ last day of official employment at City Hall is Feb. 1, though the city manager role has been filled by Mendoza for the past few weeks and Godinez is not expected to return, according to people close to the city.

Possible Destruction of Police Records

Police Chief David Valentin asked the Council for permission to destroy eight boxes of police records, from 2009 through 2012, ranging from internal investigations and employee misconduct to use-of-force incidents and citizens’ complaints. While it was on the original agenda, it was quietly deleted and never came up in Council discussion Tuesday.

It was removed sometime between Thursday evening, when the agenda was posted to the city website, and Sunday evening, without any written notice or indication that it was there previously.

Asked by Voice of OC after the meeting why it was deleted, Mendoza said he removed it because, “being put in the seat recently, I was unable to wrap my arms around that item. As you can tell, I have to be well prepared at each meeting on a variety of topics.”

The Police Department reasoned that the records are “obsolete” and have been kept for the minimum five-year period required by state law, according to screenshots of the staff report taken by a Voice of OC reporter before Mendoza took it down.

The Police Department’s request came as a new state law went into effect Jan. 1 allowing the public to obtain a variety of internal police records regarding investigations of officer misconduct, officer-worn camera footage and other records for public access.

Closed-Door Policy Committees

During a discussion on changing the Council’s public committees, Pulido said he wants to see more “ad hoc” committees, which are informal, two or three-member committees that develop city policy in secret.

Such committees, as long as the appointed council members don’t make the four-member quorum, usually do not have to abide by the Ralph M. Brown Act transparency laws and would provide a venue for the Council to move forward on policies and deals behind closed doors without public oversight or input.

The city’s permanent, or “standing” committees, in contrast, have to hold their meetings in public and publicly disclose what they plan on talking about.

“Some would say I prefer to work on an ad hoc — that I don’t want to be on structured permanent committees — and that’s okay too,” Pulido said Tuesday, adding the Council “has that flexibility.”

When Iglesias expressed interest in joining the School District and City Council committee, which would meet in public, Pulido interjected: “Or you could come to me…in establishing an ad hoc committee for that specific purpose. And that could exist for a month or a year or whatever until you feel you’ve accomplished enough.”

Villegas then proposed replacing the council’s Economic Development, Infrastructure, Budget and Technology subcommittee, with an ad hoc committee. Solorio disagreed to a point.

“I think it’s important to keep it as it is,” Solorio said. “That’s not to say there couldn’t be an ad hoc committee on one aspect of this — let’s say the budget or development project — but I wouldn’t want to make the whole thing an ad hoc committee.”

Solorio, who has been preparing to potentially run for mayor next year when Pulido is termed-out, acknowledged after the meeting the potential problems with ad hoc committees when it comes to the Brown Act.

“Ad hoc committees do serve an important purpose from time to time, but it shouldn’t be putting existing committees in jeopardy,” he told Voice of OC.

$1.7 Million Car Dealership Subsidy

The Council unanimously approved a $1.7 million subsidy deal for car dealerships across the city, as part of a program to incentivize Santa Ana residents to buy from local dealerships and receive a $500 rebate that they could elect to have deducted from their payments or receive in a check from the city.

The new deal, approved Tuesday, provides up to $1.7 million in city funding for car purchases at the dealerships. City staff, including Mendoza, didn’t return phone messages Wednesday asking whether the deal follows state requirements for subsidies.

The approved terms will go before the council for final approval within 30 days of Tuesday’s vote, according to Mendoza.

Developer Grows Impatient

Mike Harrah, the influential Santa Ana real estate developer, expressed frustration with the Council for delaying an exclusive deal for his company to obtain and redevelop the historic city-owned YMCA building in downtown, just north of the Old Orange County Courthouse.

A different bidder, the Orange County School of the Arts (OCSA), ranked highest in the city’s competitive bidding process last year, about 28 percent higher than Harrah’s bid, through his company Caribou Industries.

Council members, several of whom receive thousands of dollars in campaign money and other donations from Harrah, then directed city staff to see if OCSA could team up with Harrah on the project.

After discussions between the two bidders, OCSA said a collaboration with Harrah wouldn’t work, and the City Council ultimately moved to grant Harrah an exclusive deal to develop the property.

But at Tuesday’s meeting, there was no majority for two motions – to approve the exclusive negotiating agreement with Caribou, or to approve the deal on the condition Caribou publicly meets with OSCA to figure out a partnership. Consideration of the deal will roll over to the next council meeting, which is scheduled for Feb. 5

“It’s time we do something with this. I’ve invested 23 years with this city, and over $200 million on 5 million square feet here,” Harrah publicly told the council members Tuesday. “Prolonging this only adds to more agony of having homeless people surround the building. The only thing I wanna do is clean this up. We need to make a change.”

Harrah lost a previous bid for the YMCA building in 2014 to St. Joseph Health and Taller San Jose, which in 2017 backed out of an estimated $18 million deal to turn it into a fitness center.

“I still believe that Caribou and OSCA can work together on this,” said Pulido.

Harrah proposed Tuesday that the Council first approve his exclusive deal for the building and that he would later try to convince OSCA to join the project.

“My heart is with education and making things happen,” he said, adding “I’m a believer that once you approve the [exclusive negotiating agreement with my company], I can convince the school and everyone can work together.”

Brandon Pho is a Voice of OC intern. Contact him at bpho@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @photherecord.

Nick Gerda covers county government and Santa Ana for Voice of OC. You can contact him at ngerda@voiceofoc.org.

]]>https://voiceofoc.org/2019/01/santa-ana-grapples-with-400000-payout-police-records-destruction-during-leadership-vacuum/feed/0OC Police Chiefs Seek Common Ground on New Transparency Lawhttps://voiceofoc.org/2019/01/oc-police-chiefs-seek-common-ground-on-new-transparency-law/
https://voiceofoc.org/2019/01/oc-police-chiefs-seek-common-ground-on-new-transparency-law/#respondMon, 14 Jan 2019 14:33:30 +0000https://voiceofoc.org/?p=783667Orange County police and sheriff’s top officials, at the request of District Attorney Todd Spitzer, are working on a policy for all departments to uniformly handle the new state law that creates transparency in law enforcement discipline records, but is opposed by many police unions.

“We want to be known as a transparent and open county,” said Spitzer in a telephone interview, “not as a county that’s destroying records.”

However, the action by police chiefs and the Sheriff came as the Sheriff’s Department was unable to tell Voice of OC if it destroyed department records in anticipation of the law, which went into effect Jan. 1.

And the effort to create a universal county destruction policy follows a letter this month to all law enforcement agencies from the office of state Attorney General Xavier Becerra directing them to preserve all records that might be disclosed under the law.

In addition, the Santa Ana City Council is scheduled to vote Tuesday night whether to give its police department permission to shred records from 2012, a request Press Information Officer Cpl. Anthony Bertagna said was routine.

Bertagna said the request to shred police records was unrelated to the new law and is done each year for records more than five years old. State law requires the five-year retention.

“We only keep records for five years,” said Bertagna in a telephone interview. “Every year they purge the sixth year. To do that, we have to go to council for approval.”

Spitzer noted the statewide notice from Becerra, saying “I’m under the jurisdiction of the California Attorney General. If the Attorney General is telling me ‘you’re a law enforcement agency. You can’t destroy records,’ I’m going to abide by his letter.”

He said he can’t order other county law enforcement agencies to follow Becerra’s directive, but the police chief and sheriff’s committee, which meets monthly, discussed last week “if we could come up with some uniform policy for Orange County.”

The “Information Bulletin” from Becerra’s office read in part “In order to ensure compliance with California law, the California Attorney General’s Office is instructing you to preserve all records that may be subject to disclosure beginning January 1, 2019, pursuant to recent amendments to Penal Code Section 832.7 as a result of Senate Bill 1421 (Stats. 2018, ch. 988).” https://oag.ca.gov/sites/all/files/agweb/pdfs/publications/2019-dle-01-preserve-recs.pdf

Police unions have challenged the legality of portions of the new law, particularly its application to events that took place before it went into effect Jan. 1. The old California law was the most restrictive in the U.S. in terms of keeping the public from knowing about misdeeds or lying by law enforcement officers. Police unions opposed the new law and are challenging it in court, arguing among other things it will open too much personal information about the officers, while the old law protected their privacy.

The county’s largest law enforcement agency is the Sheriff’s Department, which covers 14 cities as well as all county territory and the Harbor Patrol.

Spokeswoman Carrie Braun said the department has received 11 requests since Jan. 1 for records under the new law and is not destroying any records. But when asked Jan. 9 if records were destroyed in anticipation of the law going into effect, Braun was unable to get an answer from her department by 5 p.m. Friday, Jan. 11.

She did say the Sheriff’s staff was learning all details of the new law, such as what information can and cannot be redacted.

Some law enforcement agencies, including the Los Angeles Police Department, have said they fear there will be so many requests for information under the new law, it will bog down their other work.

The new law, authored by Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, opens sections of the 2008 California law that closed access to internal investigations of officer shootings, other significant uses of force, confirmed cases of sexual assault and lying while on duty. Skinner’s bill, SB1421, was signed by then-Gov. Jerry Brown in September after barely passing the Legislature following strong law enforcement union opposition. Until it took effect, the only way the public could see most police discipline records was as part of a law suit.

In December, the Inglewood Police Department shredded records of more than 100 police shooting investigations and other internal affairs cases between 1991 and 2016. Long Beach destroyed records of former employees from 1978 to 2001 and also some 2013 internal affairs documents.

Last week the California Supreme Court rejected a challenge to the new law from a San Bernardino County police agency which argued it only applied to information created in 2019 and going forward. On
Dec. 31, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge issued a temporary stay preventing the LAPD from releasing records from before Jan. 1. A hearing is set for Feb. 5.

Tracy Wood is the Voice of OC Civic Editor. You can contact her at twood@voiceofoc.org.

]]>https://voiceofoc.org/2019/01/oc-police-chiefs-seek-common-ground-on-new-transparency-law/feed/0Spitzer Sworn in as DA, Promises Changes at Prosecutor’s Officehttps://voiceofoc.org/2019/01/spitzer-sworn-in-as-da-promises-changes-at-prosecutors-office/
https://voiceofoc.org/2019/01/spitzer-sworn-in-as-da-promises-changes-at-prosecutors-office/#respondTue, 08 Jan 2019 14:42:54 +0000https://voiceofoc.org/?p=779208Orange County’s new District Attorney, Todd Spitzer, said during his swearing-in ceremony Monday night there will be sweeping changes at the prosecutor’s office.

“There’s a lot of people in here tonight who are sitting on pins and needles. You have no idea what I’m going to be like as District Attorney. Some of you are elated, some of you are scared to death,” Spitzer said to a crowd of over 600 people at Chapman University in Orange. The crowd included elected officials from throughout the county.

Spitzer, pulling out the DA’s budget from the County budget book, said the DA has solely focused on the conviction rate too long.

“What about recidivism rate? What about mental health services for the defendant? What about how we’re doing in terms of helping people not reoffend? What about collection and distribution of restitution? What about satisfaction of the victim?” Spitzer asked.

His answer: “There’s a lot of other factors to the success of a prosecutor other than a conviction rate … so we’re moving to a model called the whole prosecutor. And you’re going to be judged by how you approach your cases.”

Spitzer also said the prosecutor’s office can help offset crime by restructuring the juvenile division and helping children before they become adults. “The best and brightest” and “most experienced” prosecutors will be moved to the juvenile division, he said.

“Twelve and under — no criminal prosecution from now on.”

Changes will also be made to the DA’s emblem, Spitzer said. It will now include the blindfolded Lady Justice holding the scale and a sword. The old emblem had only the scale.

JULIE LEOPO, Voice of OC

Orange County District Attorney shared during his swearing-in ceremony the changes he will make to the DA’s emblem.

“Justice carries a big-ass sword. But she also has a big blindfold,” Spitzer said, adding it’s a metaphor for the DA’s office to ethically and morally prosecute cases.

Leading up to Spitzer’s swearing in ceremony and speech, rock and roll music played. Songs such as “Fortunate Son” by Creedence Clearwater Revival and “Thunderstruck” by ACDC played while elected officials and members of the public filled the Memorial Hall Auditorium at Chapman.

Former County Supervisor Shawn Nelson, once a political opponent of Spitzer and now his chief assistant district attorney, introduced Spitzer to the crowd. There were also acoustic guitar covers of Tom Petty songs “Runnin’ Down a Dream” and “Won’t Back Down” played by South County musician Phil Vandermost before the oath of office and after Spitzer’s speech, respectively.

During his speech, Spitzer said the office will be “by the book do what’s right — regardless of political consequences.”

After the ceremony, Spitzer told Voice of OC the DA’s office needs to be “transparent” and avoid politics.

“It’s a reason I’m not endorsing any elected officials. I didn’t get to that in my speech, but I’m not going to be political. The DA’s going to call balls and strikes and the DA has no business being involved in political activity in this county,” Spitzer said. “Everybody in the county looks to the DA to be the person that’s making decisions about elections and public official conduct.”

When asked if he would help fundraise for people’s campaigns, Spitzer said he hasn’t made a decision about that yet.

“I don’t know, I’m not counting that out yet. But I will not be publicly endorsing or putting my name on anybody’s campaigns or things like that.”

Spitzer, a former county supervisor, defeated incumbent District Attorney Tony Rackauckas in the November election. Rackauckas held the post for two decades.

]]>https://voiceofoc.org/2019/01/spitzer-sworn-in-as-da-promises-changes-at-prosecutors-office/feed/0Cities Across OC Struggle with Law Enforcement and Fire Pensionshttps://voiceofoc.org/2019/01/cities-across-oc-struggle-with-law-enforcement-and-fire-pensions/
https://voiceofoc.org/2019/01/cities-across-oc-struggle-with-law-enforcement-and-fire-pensions/#respondMon, 07 Jan 2019 14:56:30 +0000https://voiceofoc.org/?p=757459Many Orange County cities are struggling to maintain budgets that keep, or minimally cut services and employees, while trying to keep up with growing law enforcement and fire pension spending.

Police officer and firefighter pension payments often take the biggest share of retirement benefits, especially in cities that have their own police departments, fire departments or both.

“See the problem is the great majority of public cost is in public safety and that’s very resistant to cuts. It’s politically powerful and the public wants public safety as well, so the public doesn’t like to see cuts there either,” said Fullerton City Councilman Bruce Whitaker.

But unions have to negotiate higher pay and benefits in order to stay competitive with other agencies to keep employees, while also trying to address the pension issue, said Garden Grove Police Officers Association President Brian Dalton.

“Moving forward, we’re obviously concerned about the pension issue. I think we all understand the gravity of the situation and I think we would be remiss in our ability to address the issue. It’s definitely something that we all have to look at,” Dalton said.

He said other police agencies, like Anaheim and Santa Ana have been able to pull some veteran officers away from Garden Grove.

“If you have other agencies that are more competitive than us, then you end up losing officers, real experienced officers, to other agencies that are paying more. We have to strike that balance to being competitive,” Dalton said. “It is a challenge, it really is … We’re working through it. We’re, at least from the association’s side, we’re open to looking at all angles.”

While Fullerton was able to adopt a balanced budget this fiscal year, some cities, like Santa Ana and Garden Grove, asked voters to increase the sales tax in order to keep police staffing levels the same, while meeting pension obligations.

Costa Mesa Councilman Jim Righeimer, who’s been critical of the increasing police and firefighter pensions, said he expects nearly every city to increase their sales tax within five years.

“I expect most every city in the next five years will raise a one cent sales tax in their cities. I think it’s wrong, I think it’s completely wrong to the public, but the public sector unions have figured out how to scare the public into ‘we can either get rid of your firefighters and police, or you pass a one-cent sales tax’ … you scare the public enough and you’ll get what you want,” Righeimer said.

He said the Legislature should come up with a statewide pension cap to reign in the rising costs.

Fullerton City Manager Ken Domer said it’s tough to pay pensions when the costs are rising at a faster rate than city revenues.

“It’s extremely difficult when your pensions costs are escalating at a pace that is much higher than your other expenditures and far higher than your revenues and if we have a recession in two years, we’re going to see our revenues decrease and our pension expenditures increase. And that’s where just about every city is going to struggle with,” Domer said.

The California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS) is asking cities to pay more toward unfunded pensions and pay them off sooner. CalPERS is a statewide agency that manages the pension funds of public employees and gives pension payment projections to cities.

The California League of Cities released a report last January which outlines the pension hardships cities face and estimates pension costs will increase roughly 50 percent by 2024.

Balancing Cuts During Budget Process

According to CalPERS projections for Fullerton, the city will have to pay roughly $20.5 million total in pensions for the 2018-2019 fiscal year. The majority of that, $14.3 million, is for safety employees’ pensions.

Whitaker said Fullerton has had to put infrastructure projects, like road repair, on hold while the city figures out how to deal with the rising pension costs. At nearly every Fullerton City Council meeting, the city’s poor road conditions are brought up by residents during public comment.

“Actually what you’ve seen there has been threefold. One is postponing necessary infrastructure improvements, like in Fullerton, the streets have gotten worse because we need to take up the growing pension costs,” Whitaker said. “We’ve had to curtail a lot of the bottom-level employees when it comes to landscape maintenance, arborists … public works … it seems like that’s the choice area where cities start cutting back and we’ve seen some of that.”

“And the third consequence of this has been increased taxes and fees. Most cities have been working on driving up structural taxes and fees and we’ve seen this election,” Whitaker said, referring to sales tax measures and fee increases throughout cities.

Many cities will have to either raise taxes or cut services, said nonprofit pension watchdog California Policy Center President Will Swaim.

“The overview is we’re seeing — it’s not a left/right thing so much at the local level — is public officials have to balance their budgets year in and year out and faced with two possibilities, none of them appetizing,” Swaim said.

The California Policy Center’s members include some local Republican names like former San Diego City Councilman Carl DeMaio, who largely organized and funded the effort to repeal the 12-cent state gas tax this past election. The board also includes former Tustin City Councilman Jim Palmer and newly elected Santa Ana City Councilwoman Ceci Iglesias.

Righeimer said other city employees face cuts because they don’t have the political strength and organization of the safety unions.

“The reality of it is, in the end, except for police and fire, you continue to hit at everything else because they don’t have the political power that police and fire have,” Righeimer said. “I just call them your regular, everyday employees — they’re getting the short end of the stick.”

Santa Ana and Garden Grove Sales Tax Increases

The Santa Ana City Council, facing a financial crisis maintaining current personnel and city service levels, put a sales tax increase to voters in November. They voted to increase the city sales tax — from 7.75 percent to 9.25 percent — by a margin of 15 percentage points, which gave the city the highest sales tax in the county.

The city is facing a $10 million shortfall this fiscal year and it is expected to hit roughly $40 million by the 2021 fiscal year. The tax increase is expected to generate about $63 million annually.

Given the $40 million-plus funding gap in future years, it appears most of the $63-million tax increase would go toward maintaining existing services and the pension cost increases for the existing workforce and retirees, with the remainder supporting expansions.

According to CalPERS projections, Santa Ana has to pay $27.7 million in pension contributions for its safety employees for the 2018-2019 fiscal year. Of that, $19.3 million is going to pay unfunded liabilities — retirees’ benefits. The other $8.4 million is going to pay for “normal costs,” which is money paid to CalPERS to invest to pay for future pensions of employees currently working for the city. Employees also help shoulder some of the normal costs.

Current safety employees pay $3.5 million of the $11.9 million normal cost, leaving the rest — $8.4 million — for Santa Ana to pay.

“Santa Ana Police Officers have worked with the city to address pension costs. Officers are now paying 12% of their salaries towards PERS (Public Employees’ Retirement System). In addition, officers now have to work seven additional years before retiring and receiving said benefit. The economy is doing great and in fact PERS reported an 11.2% rate of return in 2017. The 11.2% rate of return will have a positive impact on what cities pay in the upcoming years,” said Santa Ana Police Officers Association President Gerry Serrano in an email.

The city also has a separate $24.5 million pension payment for all of its other employees, including $18.3 million in unfunded liabilities and nearly $6.2 million in normal costs — employees contribute nearly $4.9 million in normal costs. In total, Santa Ana has to pay over $52 million to pensions in the current fiscal year.

Serrano said Santa Ana has a high amount of vacancies in the police force and the positions have already been budgeted for.

“As far as retention and recruitment, the Santa Ana Police Department is the only Orange County agency with astronomical funded vacancies. The city of Santa Ana has 51 funded police officer vacancies, which makes providing public safety very challenging,” Serrano said.

According to the projections, Santa Ana’s contributions to unfunded liabilities for safety employees will increase from nearly $23.5 million in the 2019-2020 fiscal year to $35.1 million in the 2024-2025 fiscal year. During that same time frame, its pensions for the other city employees will rise from nearly $21.4 million to over $30.5 million.

“Pension contributions are already squeezing our cities and counties … so that has to be funded through pension contributions bonds, which is really kicking the can down the road, or they have to cut services or raise taxes. Period. That’s just really simple algebra — you push down the balloon in one spot and it goes up in another place,” said Ed Ring, CA Policy Center co-founder and financial analyst.

In Garden Grove, the city is trying to reduce a projected $8 million deficit for the 2018-19 fiscal year by instituting an early retirement program, a 5 percent budget cut to every department but public safety and other adjustments. Even after the cuts, the city is left with a $3.6 million shortfall, according to a budget presentation.

Like Santa Ana, the Garden Grove City Council put a sales tax question to voters in November. Voters overwhelmingly approved the sales tax measure by a nearly 30 percent margin, raising the sales tax by one percent, meaning Garden Grove will now have an 8.75 percent sales tax. Placentia voters also did the same this November.

“These are regressive taxes hitting people that are least able to pay. And they are shouldering some of the costs related to pensions and benefits — that really is the impact,” Whitaker said.

For the 18-19 fiscal year, Garden Grove has to pay a total of $25.6 million in pensions, with the majority — $16.2 million — going to safety employee pensions. The city owes $9.4 million to its other employees.

Dalton said the Garden Grove police union is currently negotiating its new contract with the city and both sides will address the pension issue.

“There are remedies to that, there are [pensionable] benefits, there are non [pensionable] benefits that address both sides of the fence. We want to stay competitive in the workplace, because we don’t want to lose experienced officers to other agencies,” Dalton said.

“Up until recently, we’ve maybe lost a couple officers to Anaheim, maybe one or two to Santa Ana, but we’re starting to lose more and more — going over to Anaheim. We’re talking 10, 12-year officers — we’re trying to avoid that.”

Dalton said in previous contract negotiations the union agreed to increase its contribution to pensions from 9 to 12 percent starting in 2015, three years earlier than the Public Employees Reform Act called for.

“It wasn’t an automatic increase, it was something that had to be negotiated between the union and the city … and that’s what we ended up negotiating to do in our contract,” he said.

At a July 24 meeting, when the City Council decided to put the sales tax question to voters, Mayor Steve Jones said the increase to pension payments from CalPERS hit the city hard.

“CalPERS lowered the discount rate (investment return rate) … they also shortened the amortization period (payment schedule) for the repayment unfunded liabilities,” Jones said. “It was unanticipated and directly out of our control … it exponentially increases next year and the years after in a very scary way. I don’t know how that’s going to be sustainable. I don’t know how cities across the state are going to survive that cost increase just from CalPERS alone.”

According to the CalPERS report, Garden Grove’s payments for its safety employees’ unfunded liabilities are expected to go from $12.1 million in the 19-20 fiscal year to nearly $17.8 million in 2024-2025 fiscal year. Payments for the other city employees’ unfunded liabilities are expected to grow from $7.4 million to nearly $10.4 million during the same time frame.

Although Garden Grove police department has one of the lowest officers per capita in Orange County, Dalton said, the city is in the top five safest cities.

“While we’re struggling in one area with our manpower … we’re also doing a great job on the other side with the manpower we have to keep the residents safe. My concern, as the association president, is maintaining that safe city status,” Dalton said. “Be patient with us, we’re working through it, we want to keep our experienced officers here and provide the best service for the residents of Garden Grove.”

Facing the Increased Pension Payments Ahead

Some cities, like Newport Beach, aren’t facing the financial hardships of Garden Grove or Santa Ana and are able to pay more than the minimum pension contribution in order to help save money on the backend.

Newport Beach City Councilman Will O’Neill, who also heads the city finance committee, said the city will pay anywhere from $3.7 million to $8.5 million on top of their required annual pension payments in order to bring down the unfunded liability amount.

“Let’s say you have a 30 year mortgage and you decide you’re going to pay it off in 15 years making discretionary payments. You will not have to pay any additional interest you would have had in the last 15 years. The same is true for unfunded pension liability,” O’Neill said. “We’re cutting our interest payment on the backend and in our case that’s about $45 million.”

O’Neill said the money used to pay down pensions faster could be used on other things in the city, but it’s fiscally responsible to shrink the unfunded liability as much as possible.

“It’s still a hard choice for public officials to take $8 million and use it for pension liability when there are plenty of short term things that would be fun … but this is the responsible thing for the long haul.”

Ring said the increase in unfunded pension liabilities is largely due to retired employees living longer than projected and CalPERS investments not making adequate returns.

“For example, when you look at in a pension fund — who’s participating in the fund? And you estimate for this participant population. How long are they going to live and how much money will they collect in the future?” Ring said. “Well, how much do you have to invest right now so over time that amount of money earns interest (returns) and that money’s sufficient to pay the pensions?”

Righeimer said the State Legislature could fix the increasing pension problem by adjusting the benefit amount going forward, but still keeping the accrued pension employees earned.

“The only way to fix anything is to change the plan with the employee. All you would talk about is changing the plan going forward. So you wouldn’t take away from anything they’ve already earned,” Righeimer said. “So far, we’ve never had a legislature willing to do that. The unions won’t allow that. That’s called the ‘California Rule,’ basically.”

In February, the Sacramento Bee reported CalPERS no longer expects to run deficits into the middle of the century — previous financial forecasts expected the agency to spend more money than it makes through 2040.

“When you change your expected rate of return, all of a sudden that amount of liability, that amount of money you need goes way up,” Ring said.

Over the years, CalPERS return rate has varied — sometimes it is significantly high and sometimes it’s very low. For example, in 2014 there was an 18.4 percent return rate, but it dropped to 2.4 in 2015 and dipped to 0.6 percent in 2016. In 2017, the return rate was 11.2 percent. CalPERS lowered its expected return rate from 7.5 to 7.25 last year and is expected to lower it to 7 percent the next fiscal year.

The Sacramento Bee reported CalPERS enjoyed an 8.6 investment return rate for the 2017-2018 fiscal year, raising its total funding percentage by three percent for a total of 71 percent funded.

Economic downturns, like the Great Recession, often take a financial toll on cities. The downturns also hit CalPERS investments hard. In 2008 CalPERS had a negative 5.1 investment return and a negative 24 percent return in 2009, before going up to a 13.3 percent return in 2010.

“CalPERS projects about a seven percent return per year on investments and we are overdue for a recession and we are already seeing some weaknesses in the stock market. So if we get an economic downturn, that’s going to reduce the investment returns … taxpayers are always the backstop — so if investments underperform, the taxpayers get to throw in the difference,” Whitaker said.

Domer said the market trend affecting the pension system shows how difficult paying pensions can be.

“It’s been reflecting how easy it is to take a hit and how hard it is to climb back up,” Domer said. “I think everybody should be worried and we should be looking at ways to control our costs, reduce our pension load — we have to get through it.”

Ring said CalPERS projected return rate of 7 percent is a high amount.

CalPERS investment return projections have been off and if the projections were accurate, cities and counties across the state wouldn’t be in the situation they’re in now.

“If that’s so true, how come they’re so far behind now?” he said.

Spencer Custodio is a Voice of OC staff reporter. You can reach him at scustodio@voiceofoc.org. Follow him on Twitter @SpencerCustodio

]]>https://voiceofoc.org/2019/01/cities-across-oc-struggle-with-law-enforcement-and-fire-pensions/feed/0Dramatic OC Board of Supervisors Meeting Covers DA, Homelessness and Alleged Conflictshttps://voiceofoc.org/2018/12/dramatic-oc-board-of-supervisors-meeting-covers-da-homelessness-and-alleged-conflicts/
https://voiceofoc.org/2018/12/dramatic-oc-board-of-supervisors-meeting-covers-da-homelessness-and-alleged-conflicts/#respondWed, 19 Dec 2018 12:53:14 +0000https://voiceofoc.org/?p=757697Orange County supervisors finished the year with a dramatic public meeting, featuring goodbyes to Supervisors Todd Spitzer and Shawn Nelson, criticism of all five supervisors over the deaths of more than 200 homeless people this year, and questions from the incoming DA about wiretapping and alleged conflicts of interest.

The final scheduled meeting of the year started with supervisors saying goodbye to Spitzer and Nelson, reflecting on their time together, and pointing to accomplishments.

The supervisors’ chairman, Andrew Do, singled out Nelson as “a gifted legislator” who always comes prepared and has “a vast wealth of experience” that makes him “a very formidable advocate” for what he believes in.

Spitzer will be taking office as district attorney on Jan. 7, after winning election in November against incumbent DA Tony Rackauckas.

Nelson will be in charge of day-to-day operations at the prosecutor’s office, which has more than 850 employees and handles over 60,000 criminal cases each year in the nation’s sixth-most populous county.

“Chief assistant district attorney is one of the most powerful positions in this county. And he’s gonna do a phenomenal job,” Spitzer said.

It’s unclear if Nelson has previous experience in a prosecutor’s office, and he didn’t return phone messages Tuesday asking if he had experience with criminal law.

Spitzer said he believed Nelson had criminal law experience in his private practice, and that Nelson’s firm, formerly known as Rizio & Nelson, had a criminal defense practice. According to Nelson’s official county biography, he “was a civil litigator and represented small business owners and individuals in a variety of legal matters.”

Spitzer also said Tuesday the DA’s office will have a prosecutor responsible for identifying people with mental illness “who need extra help.” And he said the DA’s office will “do everything we can to expand the collaborative courts, to help those people who are homeless to have a guide and a path to get back on the right track.”

Advocates Read Aloud Names of 200-Plus Homeless People Who Died This Year

A few minutes after supervisors congratulated themselves on a job well-done, about two dozen activists read aloud the names of more than 200 homeless people who died in Orange County this year – roughly double the number of homeless people who died annually four years ago.

The comments from the 26 people who spoke were tearful and angry at times, as people told stories and showed photos of homeless friends who died in shelters, cars, and elsewhere.

“I’m going to read a list here of names of people who were your constituents, that you had the responsibility to help. You didn’t. And some of these are directly – you’re directly responsible for their death through your inaction,” said Wes Jones, an Anaheim resident and member of the advocacy group Anaheim People’s Homeless Task Force.

Heidi Zimmerman, another advocate, said the county’s Bridges at Kraemer is “disease-ridden.”

“People aren’t meant to be 200 people in a room. You’re killing my friends. Stop killing my friends!” she told the supervisors, her voice raising to a screaming pitch.

Zimmerman said a homeless woman she knows “is in a bed full of bed bugs, and nobody gives a shit! You don’t give a shit, you’re too busy praising each other! How – what a great job you’re doing. Can’t you help them?”

She added: “People are dying in the shelters, people are dying in the streets. What’s wrong with you?”

The supervisors didn’t respond to the people who spoke to them about the homeless deaths, or comment on the issue.

“You all better be ashamed of yourselves,” activist Jestin Samson told supervisors after reading the names of several homeless people who died this year.

“I know earlier on you were patting yourselves on the back, having this big circle jerk about how everything’s all peachy keen in this county. But I want to say, shame on each one of you for allowing this to happen.”

Homeless deaths in OC have roughly doubled over the last few years, from a little over 100 deaths in 2014, to more than 200 deaths this year. The exact number of homeless deaths so far in 2018 wasn’t immediately available from sheriff-coroner officials.

The annual Longest Night memorial for homeless people who died in OC over the previous year is scheduled for this Friday, Dec. 21, at Anaheim Cemetery (1400 E Sycamore St., Anaheim) from 4 to 7 p.m.

Employee of Homeless Contractor Telecare Says it Failed County

For months, advocates have complained about the treatment of homeless people by Telecare, a company hired by the county to provide mental health services and shelter at the Baymont Inn & Suites motel in Anaheim.

Allegations included that the company failed to provide health treatment it was supposed to, did not clean dirty rooms, and unnecessarily escalated a situation into physical confrontation.

On Tuesday, during public comments about the homeless deaths, a Telecare employee publicly said the company, while being paid by the county, had failed homeless people.

“The money that you gave to Telecare, they’re failing you each and every day,” Glass added.

“David Robert Doan, on August 31, 2018 was evicted, [along with] his girlfriend Nikki and their two dogs, from the Baymont Inn [and] Suites on Beach Blvd. in Anaheim. It was the final day of agreement between the owners of the property, and the county, which [had] leased the motel to temporary house” homeless people displaced from the Santa Ana riverbed.

“I know what happened….I wasn’t there but I was working. He begged to go to the doctor. The nurse pulled over, gave him water, checked his pulse. They said that he was fine. However, he kept begging, go to the doctor. They did not take him to the doctor. And when he got down to…the Courtyard, he lost conscious[ness] and went into a coma and passed away.”

A Telecare spokeswoman declined to comment for this article.

Glass told a Voice of OC reporter she still is a Telecare employee and has been on stress leave.

Later in Tuesday’s meeting, Spitzer questioned why supervisors weren’t informed of a possible conflict of interest related to the DA’s “independent monitor” for reforms in the wake of the informants scandal.

Rackauckas, the current DA, asked supervisors in August 2016 to approve a contract to have attorney Stephen Larson, a former federal judge, serve as the monitor to follow up on whether the DA was implementing the reforms.

“If any member of this Board [of Supervisors] knew in August [2016] – when we were asked to approve $300,000 two-year contract – that the same lawyer was defending the law firm and the investigators who were accused of putting a bug…on Mr. Righeimer and Mr. Mensinger’s car, we probably would’ve had some questions about that,” Spitzer said.

“We’d probably want to know, why would the DA want to hire the same lawyer who is the lawyer for a man you’ve charged with a crime?”

Jim Tanizaki, the current chief assistant district attorney, emphasized Larson was representing Lanzillo and the law firm in the civil case rather than criminal case. And Tanizaki said he didn’t know if Rackauckas knew at the time whether Larson represented the investigator and law firm in the civil case.

In May 2016, three months before Rackauckas asked supervisors for approval of Larson’s contract, a state appeals court issued a ruling in the surveillance lawsuit which noted Larson was representing Lanzillo and the law firm.

Larson declined to comment for this article when reached by phone Tuesday.

Spitzer said DA officials were investigating Lackie Dammeier, the law firm, over the surveillance, but did not pursue charges against the firm.

“Lackie had also been under investigation by the District Attorney’s Office, and potentially a grand jury had been convened on that issue,” Spitzer said.

“So the question becomes…by having inside access, as a consultant, to the DA’s office through [the independent monitor role] and direct access to the district attorney, did Mr. Larson have any undue influence with respect with the way the Lackie disposition was handled, and/or the Lanzillo case was handled or disposed of? And so that’s my concern.”

Do, the supervisors’ chairman, said he wasn’t sure if it was a conflict of interest, and that he and other supervisors would need time to look into it further.

In an interview last year, Larson said quarterly reports weren’t required in his contract, and that he later realized his team’s time is better spent on more important tasks.

Incoming DA Asks About Wiretap Approvals

On the heels of a Voice of OC article earlier Tuesday about an upgrade wiretapping system for the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, a high-ranking sheriff official told the incoming district attorney the upgraded system doesn’t authorize wiretapping without DA approval, when it comes to state cases.

Wiretapping orders have to be approved by the sheriff or an employee she designates, as well as an attorney at the DA’s office, the elected district attorney, and an Orange County Superior Court judge, said Capt. Ken Burmwood, who leads the sheriff’s Investigations Division and is program manager for the Regional Narcotics Suppression Program, which manages the wiretapping system.

“So this doesn’t give you independent authority outside the District Attorney’s requirement as the elected official, to approve a wiretap. Is that correct?” Spitzer asked.

“On a state wiretap, that’s correct,” Burmwood responded. The task force also does federal wiretaps, which are approved by a federal prosecutor and federal judge, according to the Sheriff’s Department.

Sheriff officials have said the wiretapping system, from the Nebraska-based company Pen-Link, allows law enforcement to monitor, store, and analyze phone conversations and internet communications for investigations of major drug trafficking and money laundering operations.

The narcotics task force has eight local law enforcement agencies in addition to the Sheriff’s Department, one state agency and three federal agencies, according to the Sheriff’s Department. The federal agencies include the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and the Army National Guard.”

The purchase is up for approval Tuesday by the county Board of Supervisors, which has approved recent Sheriff’s Department requests for surveillance equipment unanimously and without discussion.

The wiretapping system allows law enforcement to monitor, store, and analyze phone conversations and internet communications for investigations of major drug trafficking and money laundering operations, according to the Sheriff’s Department.

It is capable of capturing “massive amounts of social media and internet communication data,” as well as tracking the location of targeted cell phones, according to Pen-Link. The intercepted calls and internet traffic can be searched, sorted and analyzed, the company says.

In their staff report, sheriff officials said the Pen-Link system is used by the Regional Narcotics Suppression Program, a task force of multiple law enforcement agencies and headed up by the OC Sheriff’s Department, which investigates and prosecutes “subjects involved in large scale narcotics trafficking and money laundering.”

Pen-Link is one of a number of companies that help law enforcement conduct wiretaps and analyze the results.

Civil liberties advocates have questioned whether third-party services like Pen-Link open up a potential door to law enforcement conducting wiretaps without court oversight.

In response to questions Friday from Voice of OC, sheriff officials on Monday initially did not directly say if they can conduct wiretapping through the Pen-Link system without court orders.

But after follow-up questions, a sheriff spokeswoman said court orders are required, and that the Sheriff’s Department does not conduct any wiretapping without one.

The Pen-Link system “cannot access a phone line without authorization from the telephone company, which requires a court order,” said Carrie Braun, the chief spokeswoman for the Sheriff’s Department.

The court order must be signed and approved by the DA, sheriff, and a judge in Orange County, she said. It is then “given to the phone company’s legal department. Once approved from their legal end, the information or line is sent to the agency requesting the wiretap.”

Sheriff officials declined to disclose the total number of phone calls and internet connections they’ve wiretapped in recent years, nor the number of wiretapping orders they requested and how many were approved by the courts.

In the 1980s, Orange County taxpayers paid $375,000 to settle a lawsuit by a former judge and a former sheriff candidate alleging then-Sheriff Brad Gates had sheriff officials surveil his political opponents.

In federal court testimony, then-Sheriff’s Lt. Randall Blair, a member of Gates’ intelligence unit, testified “he remembered listening in a parked car while a hidden transmitter broadcast what one of Gates’ political opponents was saying during a college lecture.”

“The tape-recording of that lecture was found in a deputy sheriff’s garage in 1987, and soon afterward the county paid a $375,000 out-of-court settlement to the lecturer [and former Gates election opponent], George Wright, and another Gates political opponent, former Municipal Judge Bobby D. Youngblood,” the Los Angeles Times reported.

Wiretapping technology has become more and more sophisticated in recent years, while consumer concerns about their digital privacy have also become prominent.

One system known as Pegasus, which is produced by the Israeli firm NSO Group, lets governments hack into iPhones and other encrypted smart phones and listen in on conversations, download the contents of the phone and use the phone’s microphone and camera for surveillance.

The Mexican federal government purchased the Pegasus software, which has been used to hack the phones of journalists, human rights activists, and lawyers, including the son of a Mexican journalist who was living in the U.S. at the time.

After the San Bernardino terrorist attack in December 2015, the FBI and Apple got into a high-profile legal battle over whether cell phone manufacturers should be required to unlock encrypted phones.

The iPhone of one of the dead terrorists was locked with encryption that Apple said it could not unlock, unless it was ordered to make its engineers create a version of the phone’s operating system that could be unlocked even with the encryption.

Law enforcement argued it needed to examine the phone’s contents to confirm whether there was a third gunman in the attack. In fighting the FBI’s court order, Apple said the FBI had no way to ensure the tool would stay in the U.S. government’s hands.

Nick Gerda covers county government and Santa Ana for Voice of OC. You can contact him at ngerda@voiceofoc.org.

]]>https://voiceofoc.org/2018/12/oc-sheriff-moves-to-upgrade-wiretapping-system/feed/1Sheriff Officials Knew in 2015, 2016, and 2017 About Attorney-Client Recordingshttps://voiceofoc.org/2018/12/sheriff-officials-knew-in-2015-2016-and-2017-about-attorney-client-recordings/
https://voiceofoc.org/2018/12/sheriff-officials-knew-in-2015-2016-and-2017-about-attorney-client-recordings/#respondThu, 13 Dec 2018 14:54:06 +0000https://voiceofoc.org/?p=751843At least three more OC sheriff officials knew in 2016 and 2017 of illegally recorded telephone calls between jail inmates and their attorneys, in addition to a sheriff investigator’s knowledge in 2015 of such recordings, according to evidence presented Wednesday in Superior Court.

The disclosures raised questions about what the Sheriff’s Department did or didn’t tell county supervisors when seeking a renewal of the jail phones contract in October 2017.

Sheriff officials emphasized Wednesday evening the attorney-client recordings officials were apparently aware of in 2015, 2016 and 2017 appear to be separate from the computer glitch in January 2015 that caused the recording of more than 30,000 calls with numbers on a do-not-call list. That glitch was not brought to the attention of sheriff officials until June 2018, according to the Sheriff’s Department

Last week, a DA prosecutor testified about a July 2015 report from a sheriff investigator who wrote he had downloaded more than 112 recorded phone calls between inmate Lonnie Kocontes and his attorneys’ phones.

The evidence entered into court Wednesday were statements from District Attorney prosecutors describing additional specific instances in which sheriff officials downloaded or accessed the recordings in 2016 and 2017:

On April 14, 2016, Senior Deputy District Attorney Cynthia Nichols informed other DA officials and the sheriff’s “Special Assignments Sergeant” of a jail phone recording between inmate Hossein Nayeri and the phone number of his attorney, Sal Ciulla, according to a court declaration by Nichols. “[The Sheriff’s Department] looked into the recording and I was advised that recorded call was an inmate/jail phone call that was placed to Sal Ciulla’s cell phone,” Nichols wrote. The prosecutor did not listen to the call, but did inform the defense attorney about it and provided him a copy of the recording, she wrote.

On January 5, 2017, a sheriff’s deputy and sheriff investigator “accessed” a jail phone call recording between the office phone number of attorney Joseph Smith and his client, Michael Saenz, according to a letter from Deputy District Attorney Chris Alex.

Both statements were entered into evidence Wednesday by defense attorney Joel Garson, with no objections from the DA’s office. The DA’s lawyers told Superior Court Judge Jonathan S. Fish the statements reflected what the prosecutors would testify to under oath if they were called to the witness stand.

In California, it is a felony for anyone to record or eavesdrop without permission on inmates’ phone calls with attorneys, doctors, or clergy.

After Wednesday’s court haring, Voice of OC asked the Sheriff’s Department’s chief spokesperson if any steps were taken after the July 2015, April 2016, and January 2017 instances to examine whether the jail phones system was properly blocking the recording of attorney-client calls, and if steps were taken to examine whether there were enough safeguards to prevent recording of attorney-client calls.

It was unclear Wednesday what training or guidance, if any, the Sheriff’s Department provided employees regarding not recording or listening to inmate phone conversations with attorneys.

Also protected under the law are the phone calls of inmates who represent themselves, known as “pro per” defendants. In several instances, a Sheriff’s Department contractor recorded such calls despite a court order granting the inmate unmonitored calls.

Braun said Wednesday she would need more time to find out the procedures the Sheriff’s Department previously had in place for making sure the inmate phone system did not record these “pro per” calls.

Disclosures that sheriff officials knew of attorney-client recordings for years also raised questions about whether they informed county supervisors when seeking an extension of the sheriff’s jail phones contract with Global Tel-Link (GTL) in October 2017, which the supervisors granted.

Molly Nichelson, the county government’s spokeswoman, didn’t have an immediate answer Wednesday evening.

Braun said the Sheriff’s Department didn’t know until June 2018 about about the glitch with recording calls with numbers on do-not-call list.

“GTL notified [the Sheriff’s Department in June 2018 that due to a glitch in their system, attorney-client phone calls were recorded. These are calls in which attorney’s had proactively placed their numbers on a “do not record list,” and because of the GTL error were improperly recorded,” Braun wrote in an emailed response to questions.

“OCSD was not made aware of this until June 2018, so therefore would have been unable to share with the Board any issues at the time of the contract renewal in October 2017.”

Braun also emphasized the recordings discussed in the hearings last week and Wednesday may be separate from the recording glitch problem.

“My understanding of the calls being discussed in court today and last week is that they may not all be related to the GTL system error,” Braun wrote.

“Even today, with all our safeguards, if an attorney does not identify his number as one that should not be recorded, then there is the possibility that a recording could take place. We would have no way of knowing it is an attorney-client call unless it is listened to.”

At that time of the extension request with GTL, sheriff officials had downloaded or accessed attorney-client calls in July 2015, April 2016, and January 2017, according to the court evidence and testimony.

Braun said the current procedure, put in place around late August 2018, is: “Prior to accessing a recorded call, the phone number being called is searched through open sources in order to attempt to identify who the number belongs to. If the number is identified as belonging to an attorney, [jail phones contractor] GTL is immediately notified to place the phone number related to the recording on the private list.”

“GTL is also instructed to sequester all previous recordings related to that same number from access by the Sheriff’s Department. If an accessed recording is identified as a possible privileged communication, the user immediately stops listening to the recording and GTL is immediately notified to place the phone number related to the recording on the private list. GTL is also instructed to sequester the recording or recordings from any further access by the Sheriff’s Department,” she continued.

“A Sheriff’s Department report is written and submitted to County Counsel who in turn lodges the report with the court. It is the Sheriff Department’s understanding that the report is then made available to the court appointed special master.”

Much of the testimony Wednesday revolved around a January 2015 court filing by inmate Branden Shumate, who was representing himself.

Shumate wrote that while a court order granted him unmonitored phone calls in jail, he was still receiving warnings on his calls about them being recorded.

While there’s a separate attorney-to-client phone portal, “there is no such portal or separately designated option to ensure that my ability to communicate the preparations of my defense in absolute privacy and confidence are being respected,” Shumate wrote in his January 2015 court motion.

“The prerecorded menu also randomly states, ‘If you are an attorney, and you do NOT want your call monitored and recorded, please hang up and dial’ [a particular number]. This random warning/option can be heard by the caller and the call recipient and clearly implies to both that unless you are an attorney calling the alternate number, you are absolutely being monitored and recorded.”

Shumate’s January 2015 court filing was reviewed at the time by Deputy County Counsel Elizabeth Pejeau, who handled jail-related court matters on behalf of the Sheriff’s Department.

Pejeau testified Wednesday she had no recollection of following up to see if Shumate’s allegation was correct, and that she didn’t know how many other cases there were of “pro per” inmates alleging their calls were being monitored in violation of court orders.

Garson, the defense attorney, told the judge he would issue a subpoena to the County Counsel’s Office for other instances where inmates made such allegations.

The jail phone recordings issue came into public view in August, after Garson discovered calls between Waring and his prior attorney were recorded, as well as calls Waring made while he was representing himself despite a court order granting him unmonitored calls.

Waring, whose mother is former Real Housewives of Orange County star Lauri Peterson, faces attempted murder charges in connection with a 2016 shooting in Costa Mesa.

The start of Waring’s trial in the attempted murder case was pushed back Wednesday, from Jan. 8 to Feb. 19.

Nick Gerda covers county government and Santa Ana for Voice of OC. You can contact him at ngerda@voiceofoc.org.

]]>https://voiceofoc.org/2018/12/sheriff-officials-knew-in-2015-2016-and-2017-about-attorney-client-recordings/feed/0Man Pulls Knife as Orange City Council Mulls Appointing New Council Memberhttps://voiceofoc.org/2018/12/man-pulls-knife-as-orange-city-council-mulls-appointing-new-council-member/
https://voiceofoc.org/2018/12/man-pulls-knife-as-orange-city-council-mulls-appointing-new-council-member/#respondThu, 13 Dec 2018 14:52:41 +0000https://voiceofoc.org/?p=751880Peter Morales, 35, brandished a pocket knife during the Orange City Council meeting and was arrested Tuesday night during a heated public discussion on how to fill a council vacancy.

The Council has until Feb. 9 to decide whether it will appoint someone to the seat which was left vacant with two years left on its term by former Councilman Mark Murphy, who was elected Mayor Nov. 6. The council’s alternative is to let voters fill the vacancy in a special election.

“(Valencia) is not the ear, the mouth, or the symbol that she claims to be of the Hispanic community … I will not see it on this Council,” said Morales to the Council.

In a video uploaded to YouTube, Morales finished his remarks by calling the person filming him a “loser” before walking to the back of the chambers. When the person filming followed him, Morales brandished a knife while looking at the camera and opened the blade.

People in the chambers could be heard shouting “He has a knife!” before Morales disappeared from view, followed by a police officer. Murphy then tried to calm the audience, a majority of which had stood up, while all the council members remained seated.

“He spits hate and vitriol and has a knife. How is that not concerning?” one person shouted at the Council.

“These are the people that support you,” shouted another.

“If you’d have a seat, I believe it’s taken care of,” Murphy replied from the dais.

Orange Police Sgt. Phil McMullin said Morales was released from county jail Tuesday night with a weapon citation.

In a phone interview, Valencia wouldn’t directly comment on Morales, but said although she’s not “homegrown,” being a Mexican-American immigrant, “I got here as fast as I could.”

Many of the roughly 140 people at the meeting showed support for Valencia — who would have been the historically-conservative council’s first gay and Latina member — as the logical choice for the appointment because she came in third in the “at-large” election for two council seats behind incumbent Kimberlee Nichols, who was reelected, and Chip Monaco, who replaced the termed-out Fred Whitaker. Valencia carried nearly 11,000 votes, according to the county Registrar of Voters.

None of the council members during discussion indicated whether they were for or against a special election or appointment. The Council also hasn’t indicated who, if anyone, they might be considering for an appointment.

“I’ve heard a lot of misinformation, it’s almost amusing,” Murphy said before opening it up to public comment. “I just want to be clear to anyone thinking we’re going to appoint somebody tonight, none of that’s going to happen tonight.”

The city faced this same situation in 2000 when Murphy left his Council seat vacant when elected mayor that year. The Council was then faced with a decision between an appointment and a special election.

When some members of the Council indicated they wouldn’t appoint Carolyn Cavecche, who like Valencia came in third in that year’s citywide election for two Council seats, then-Councilman Dan Slater said at a Dec. 12 meeting that anything less than appointing Cavecche would be considered “a backroom deal.”

The Council ultimately left it to voters in 2001, and Cavecche won in the special election.

When asked whether or not Valencia would consider legal action if the city decided to appoint someone and it wasn’t her:

“I haven’t thought as far as that,” she said. “I have faith that the City Council will do the just thing.”

Hendricks and Oliveras apparently got into a fight with two EMTs at an Aug. 24 concert at the FivePoint Amphitheatre in Irvine. The EMTs were evidently treating Hendricks’ wife after she fell during the concert, according to a police report.

According to the DA’s news release, Oliveras put an EMT in a chokehold and Hendricks shoved the two EMTS to the ground during the fight. Hendricks is being charged with two counts of battery and one count of resisting and obstructing a police officer. Oliveras is being charged with one count of battery and one count of resisting and obstructing a police officer.

Hendricks could face up to three years in county jail and Oliveras faces a maximum sentence of up to two years on county jail, according to the DA’s news release.

“Based on statements provided, it was determined Hendricks used physical force on [name blanked out] by pushing him while he was actively working as an EMT. It was also determined Oliveras used physical force on [an EMT] by grabbing and applying pressure to [unnamed EMT’s] neck as [the EMT] attempted to medically treat Hendricks’ wife. Furthermore, based on the statements provided, it was determined used physical force by pushing [an EMT] multiple times when she was actively working as an EMT. Based on these statements, it was determined both Hendricks and Oliveras were in violation of CPC 240; Assault and CPC 243(b); Battery on an EMT,” reads the report.

Hendricks’ wife was being treated by EMTs at the concert after she had fallen, but the report said he insisted on taking her home in an Uber ride.

“I heard the male subject (Hendricks) say, ‘I’ma fucking cop’ and then continue talking about wanting to take an Uber home,” reads the report, adding that Hendricks tried walking away, but was stopped by the two responding officers. “Don’t fuck with me,” Hendricks told officers, according to the report.

The DA news release reads, “Hendricks is accused of pushing two EMTs as they attempted to provide treatment and Oliveras is accused of putting one victim in a headlock.”

After leaving the Fullerton Police Department Hendricks became a finalist for police chief of Mt. San Antonio College.

At a public forum for the finalists, the moderator of the police chief candidate forum asked if there was any past history that could question the judgement of the candidates.

“Well, I will tell you that the answer to that is no. And you can see — hear things about a number of, well anybody — and know this, it’s a story, it’s one side. And everybody has different things that go on throughout their lives … and my goal since … just getting out of high school and decided that I wanted to be a police officer was to maintain, live my life with integrity … that meant you didn’t want to go to parties your friends did because you didn’t go to and I missed those and didn’t have a problem with it … but there isn’t a greater charge, as a police officer in general, integrity is paramount, there’s no question about that we all know that.”

Hendricks concluded, “When you’re the chief you’re speaking for the whole entire department, so that is, takes that importance of integrity and decision-making and magnifies it tenfold so it’s very important to me.”

Spencer Custodio is a Voice of OC staff reporter. You can reach him at scustodio@voiceofoc.org. Follow him on Twitter @SpencerCustodio

]]>https://voiceofoc.org/2018/12/former-fullerton-police-chief-charged-with-attacking-paramedic/feed/0Supervisors Silent on Immigration Debate Over Inmate Transfers to ICEhttps://voiceofoc.org/2018/12/supervisors-silent-on-immigration-debate-over-inmate-transfers-to-ice/
https://voiceofoc.org/2018/12/supervisors-silent-on-immigration-debate-over-inmate-transfers-to-ice/#respondWed, 05 Dec 2018 03:47:22 +0000https://voiceofoc.org/?p=741318Intensely-held beliefs on all sides of the illegal immigration debate were on full display at Tuesday’s Orange County Board of Supervisors meeting, where officials held a state-mandated public forum about the transfer of certain Sheriff’s Department inmates to federal immigration authorities.

The forum, required for the first time this year under California’s TRUTH Act, brought out more than two dozen public speakers who supported and opposed the Sheriff’s Department’s involvement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The five elected county supervisors themselves declined to say anything about the issue or present data prepared for the meeting by sheriff’s officials, prompting pushback from some in the audience.

“We need transparency!” shouted one audience member, when it was clear the supervisors wouldn’t address the public on the issue.

“It was very disappointing to see you not thank them for speaking,” said north OC resident Brian Kaye in public comments later in the meeting to the supervisors, who didn’t respond.

The Orange County Sheriff’s Department’s jail staff cooperate with ICE, by transferring inmates who qualify under state law for release to ICE once they’ve served their time in county jail, and by housing ICE detainees through a contract, according to department spokeswoman Carrie Braun.

“It’s important to note that we do not do street level immigration enforcement,” Braun said in an email Tuesday. “We provide public safety services for all residents of Orange County without concern for their immigration status.”

After the forum, Barnes spoke one-on-one with residents and answered questions. He emphasized deputies do not conduct immigration enforcement on the streets of Orange County, and that the department fully complies with the TRUST Act, a state law that prohibits law enforcement from holding inmates past their normal release date unless they were convicted of a specified “serious or violent felony.”

When Laura Kanter, a youth advocate with the Santa Ana-based LGBT Center OC, told Barnes a woman she knows was afraid to visit a family member in jail, the undersheriff said she had nothing to worry about and offered to personally drive the woman to the jail and take her to a visitation.

The public comments at the forum reflected the ongoing national debate over immigration.

People who supported strong immigration enforcement said they were standing up for the rule of law, and that the Sheriff’s Department cooperation with ICE makes communities safer by removing dangerous criminals.

“If we don’t have laws, we don’t have a country,” said Luis Adame. “We cannot take in the entire population of the globe.”

“If [an] illegal alien does not want to risk deportation, then they should read the three sanctuary state bills and refrain from committing the crimes that will get one deported,” said Robert Lauten.

People who opposed local law enforcement cooperation with ICE said the cooperation makes communities less safe by making immigrants and their family members fearful of reporting crime, and that domestic violence victims wrongfully plead guilty to crimes that can get themselves deported.

“By collaborating with ICE you are mixing policing with immigration policy. Studies show that by doing that you are making all of us unsafe: citizens, people with status, and undocumented people. All of us,” said Jack Lerner.

“I’ve seen mothers crying as their children are torn from their arms,” said Asmaa Ahmed, a policy manager with the Anaheim office of the Council on American–Islamic Relations.

Several commenters asked for specific data about several topics, including how many people the Sheriff’s Department transfers from jail to ICE custody.

The TRUTH Act states that as part of the public forum, “the local law enforcement agency may provide the governing body with data it maintains regarding the number and demographic characteristics of individuals to whom the agency has provided ICE access, the date ICE access was provided, and whether the ICE access was provided through a hold, transfer, or notification request or through other means.”

When public comments were finished, Do, the supervisors’ chairman who was running the meeting, asked the county’s top lawyer if that information was required to be presented.

County Counsel Page replied that it was optional. “The provision of data is permissive, not mandatory,” he said.

“The board has satisfied the requirements” of the TRUTH Act, Page said.

Barnes’ prepared remarks for the forum, which the supervisors didn’t invite him to give, acknowledged the passions surrounding immigration policy and emphasized the department does not arrest people for immigration violations.

“We strongly agree with those who argue that local law enforcement should not be enforcing immigration law. We have never, do not, and will not arrest individuals for violation of immigration law.It is not our charge and doing so could hinder our effectiveness in carrying out our core mission,” Barnes wrote in his prepared remarks.

“We will, however, always advocate for the ability to communicate with our federal law enforcement partners on keeping the narrow segment of criminal offenders out of our community. Doing so keeps ALL members of our community safe.”

Asked why Barnes didn’t speak at the forum, Braun, the spokeswoman, said: “Sheriff-elect Barnes was prepared to present and respond to questions.”

“The meeting was run by the Board of Supervisors,” she noted, referring questions about the meeting format to county spokeswoman Molly Nichelson.

Asked why the sheriff didn’t speak, Nichelson didn’t have an answer as of late Tuesday. She referred to the 693-page document that had information about the Sheriff’s Department policies related to ICE starting on page 618. (The document doesn’t show a table of contents listing the page numbers.)

In an interview with Voice of OC after the forum, Barnes said the department follows state law.